TORONTO/BAGHDAD: In camps across northern Iraq, people forced from their homes by IS militants are using their phones to track what is happening to their properties, according to researchers who say returning home is crucial for building a safe future in the war-torn nation.
More than three million Iraqis have been driven from their homes, land and farms, according to the United Nations, many of them by armed groups like IS.
As pro-government forces intensify the fight against IS, clearing militants from much of Mosul and other cities they once held, displaced people are hoping to return home soon.
Before leaving the camps, they are keeping a close eye on Facebook and digital messaging services to better understand what they will be returning to or who might be occupying their homes, said Nadia Siddiqui from Social Inquiry, a research group based in northern Iraq.
With conflicting land claims and weak property rights in parts of Iraq due to years of violence, establishing who rightfully owns what is crucial for reducing violence and building social trust, Siddiqui said.
Digital tools are helping establish ownership by allowing them to build dossiers of what belongs to them with photographic evidence, title deeds and other data which could be used in court to prove their claims. “In the long-term, land and property issues are some of the root causes (of strife),” Siddiqui said.
Disputes over property exacerbate communal or religious tensions, she said, and lingering issues over unclear ownership can fester for generations, making it difficult to build the economy and move past a history of violence. “People remember these kinds of things,” Siddiqui said.
Clearing up ownership conflicts and creating arbitration processes for competing land claims can help ease social tensions, she said.
More than 60 per cent of displaced people use digital tools like Facebook, camera phones and messaging apps to actively monitor the status of their properties, according to a July survey in Erbil supported by Social Inquiry.
The average household of displaced people has three mobile phones, the small survey said, meaning tools to collect data on properties are accessible even to those who fled their lands in the dead of night.
Thirty two per cent of displaced people surveyed share information about the status of their properties on social media.
“What is so exciting about the process is that people have this evidence already on their phones or on their Facebook page,” said Emily Frank, an anthropologist turned marketing executive in Montreal, Canada, who has monitored property rights in countries facing conflict.
Many people, however, do not realise these digital documents and photos of the land where they once lived can be used as evidence in court or a property restitution process once it is safe enough to return home, said Frank.
Along with helping individuals claim their homes from armed groups or others who have been occupying them, photos, videos and other digital data become increasingly powerful as more displaced people collect them, she said. — Reuters
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